Medical Diagnostic Centers Association established in Kazakhstan

Medical Diagnostic Centers Association has been established in Kazakhstan, Tengrinews.kz reports citing Kazakhstan Vice-Minister of Healthcare Eric Baizhunussov as saying in Astana.

“Based on the international experience we believe that it is very important to unite all medical diagnostic centers into one Association and to create a common Internet-space that would serve as a common system of electronic diagnostics. The Unified Information Healthcare System will be put into operation in 2015 and every Kazakhstan clinic, including rural district hospitals will become computer-assisted hospitals. All users of the network will have access to cloud technologies. Diagnostic service is the most relevant base for development of the system,” Eric Baizhunussov said.

Eight independent regional diagnostic centers have already joined the Association. The Vice-Minister of Healthcare said that diagnostic centers have been established in almost all Kazakhstan oblast centers as part of the first state-run Health Care Reform Program that was implemented in Kazakhstan in 2005-2010. According to the Ministry of Healthcare these centers have been supplied with all required equipment, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanners.

“We will continue working in the framework of the approved programs for development of oncology service. We are planning to equip more than 143 hospitals with the up-to-date equipment as part of the program,” the Vice-Minister said.

“The medical diagnostic experts’ training has much specifics to it. We should train medical students to use high tech-equipment in universities. Where can we train these professionals? We are developing a dual education system together with the Ministry of Healthcare. The students, who will be using these equipment in their future work will be learn to use them remotely. The National Diagnostic Center should become a center for training and advanced training. Everything new there is and will be in this system should be tested in this center before being spread throughout the country. This should help us improve early diagnostics of almost all diseases,” Baizhunussov said.